


Bruise Easily

by Feliz



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Zombies, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-29
Updated: 2014-04-29
Packaged: 2018-01-21 05:48:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1539917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feliz/pseuds/Feliz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I bruise easily so be gentle when you handle me</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bruise Easily

**Author's Note:**

> Complete AU, where I imagine Daryl to be more like 27 and Beth to be 20. Just a one shot ficlet that was rolling around in my head tonight. No beta, so feel free to point out problems as grammar and I are not the best of friends. 
> 
> I am actually working on a Rickyl fic right now that is longer with more angst, but I'm also a Bethyl girl at heart and I just wanted some fluff!
> 
> Lyrics from "I Bruise Easily" by Natasha Bedingfield

_My skin is like a map  
Of where my heart has been_

Daryl sees her for the first time across a bonfire at a party T-Dog had forced him to go to for some unknown reason. She's wearing a white sweater, jeans and boots and the fire glints off her blonde hair making her appear ethereal. He thinks she looks like an angel and it takes him four drinks to work up the courage to go over to her. 

He sits beside her on a log, asking if she's got a light. She gives him a shy smile and tells him that she doesn't smoke and he shouldn't either. They make small talk for a few minutes before he asks her if she wants to take a walk, selfishly he needs to get up and move around 'cause he feels like he's jumping out of his skin just looking at her. They take a full bottle of the rot gut moonshine that folks around here spend years perfecting and take turns swigging mouthfuls. 

They wander the surrounding woods for an hour and finally make their way to the big barn beside the bonfire, leaning heavily on each other, she's flushed and giggling and he can't stop touching her. Her hand, her back, her soft hair, even running his fingers over her cheek. He can't believe she's looking at him, much less letting him put his hands on her. His mind feels fuzzy and he can't seem to put together a coherent thought or stop staring at her. 

She smiles and pulls him toward the ladder leading up to the hay loft. She practically attacks him once he crosses over the ladder and pushes him down on the spread hay. Its all a blur, like maybe this is a dream. Could she really be an angel? Cause Daryl's never felt anything like this before; like time is barreling forward and slowing down all at once. Afterward he falls asleep, arms wrapped tight around her, like she might disappear in the night. 

In the morning when he wakes, he's stone cold sober. She still looks gorgeous in the daylight and he can't believe he actually got to touch her. He knows when she wakes, she will look at him with disappointment. She will try to hide her regret as she tries to get away from him without giving him her number. She will have pity in her eyes as he clings to the hope that she doesn't think of this, of him as a mistake. He can't stand the thought of it, so he leaves first. He gathers his clothes and silently makes his way down the ladder. He doesn't look back. 

Beth. Her name was Beth.

**********

_And I can't hide the marks_  
 _But its not a negative thing_

It takes him a few weeks to work up the nerve to ask T-Dog about Beth. Turns out she works part-time at a bakery just down the street from his garage while she finishes school. He spends the next month watching out the window hoping for glimpses of her as she comes and goes from work. She seems happy, smiling at people she passes. 

He wonders if she ever thinks about that night, about him. He can't go more than five minutes without Beth crossing his mind. Its like an obsession. Or an illness. He feels like everyone can see it. Like she has marked him somehow. So different than the marks his father left on him but no less life changing. What did he think about before her? He was sure his mind had been occupied with something, but he can't figure out what. He watches as she leaves work, making her way down the sidewalk towards her car. 

_Seventy-eight days_ , he thinks. It's been 78 days since he touched her.

**********

A few weeks (and six Beth spyings) later, he agrees to go to a bar after work with the guys from the garage. He's just coming out of the bathroom when he runs right into her. Literally. She goes flying backwards and his hands instinctively reach out to keep her from falling. He just stands there staring at her, hands wrapped around her biceps. Until the douche bag behind her in khakis and a polo reaches around her to shove Daryl. “Hey, redneck. Get your filthy hands off her!”

Jesus, what is he doing? He drops his hands, steps around them and heads straight for door. He hears her call his name, but he doesn't turn around. He's been laughed at enough to know what it feels like, he doesn't think he could stomach watching her do it. 

This is it, he thinks. This will be thing that turns it all around. He's going to stop thinking about that prissy little bitch and get back to his real life. He silently apologizes; he doesn't actually think that about her, couldn't really hate her if he tried. In fact, a tiny voice in his head tells him he feels the exact opposite. He has no idea if that's true or not because his experience in it is limited, but he didn't think that love would hurt this much.

**********

Nine days later, she comes into the garage just before closing time. One of the guys tells him a woman asked for him and he was in no way prepared for it to be her. He just stares at her, bathed in the dying red-orange sunlight coming through the plate glass windows for a minute before he blurts, “You're glowing.”

Holy fuck, did he really just say that? He blushes and looks at the floor, but she just giggles. “Yeah, I should be. Because I'm pregnant.” He jerks his head up to stare at her and she looks unsure and on the verge of tears. She keeps glancing to him and away like she wants to run. He wants her to stay more than anything. 

“You wanna go to dinner with me?”

Over Mexican food, which has apparently become her new pregnancy craving, she tells him about her recent doctor's appointment and that she is almost three and half months along. 

_I know_ he silently agrees. _It's been 104 days._

**********

_So I lay down my guard_  
 _Drop my defenses_  
 _Down by my clothes_  
 _I'm learning to fall_  
 _With no safety net_  
 _To cushion the blow_

He guesses they're dating like normal people do; they spend a lot of time just talking. Well, she talks and he listens. She tells him about school and work, she apologizes for her brother's friend at the bar, she talks about the baby and wonders if its a boy or a girl. 

Sometimes he just sits and stares at her until she blushes and looks away. She asks what he is thinking and he just shrugs. She holds his hand when they walk and he wonders if this is what love is supposed to feel like. It kind of feels like a medical emergency; like his heart is going to beat out of his chest and he can't hear anything around him, its thumping so loud. It's exhilarating and exhausting. He wonders if she feels like that too? When she stops what she is doing to walk over and wrap her arms around him and hold on, he thinks she probably does.

**********

_I bruise easily_  
 _So be gentle_  
 _When you handle me_  
 _There's a mark you leave_  
 _Like a love heart_  
 _Carved on a tree_  
 _Can't scratch the surface_  
 _Without moving me_  
 _Underneath, I bruise easily_

Its been two months and Daryl's finally opening up to her. He's told her about his family and how he came to own the garage. About how he always wanted to be a fireman and he's actually a little afraid of cats, because of the evil one that lived next door. 

And then the doubt creeps in. He notices that she always introduces him as “the baby's father”. She is nagging him to meet her family because they are all dying to know “the baby's father”. Is that all he is? Would she even be here in his cheap loft apartment if it weren't for the baby? Would she have ever come looking for him?

He knew how they looked to other people, knew he didn't deserve someone like her. Did she know? It hurt to think that she probably did not feel about him the way he did about her, about the baby. He was already making plans in his head; getting a house, decorating a nursery, buying a vehicle that actually has a back seat. 

He decides to pull back. She could be gone in a year, a month, a week. Heartache just around a corner, waiting to fall.

**********

A week after he decides to start playing things close to the vest, she shows up after work unannounced. Apparently he wasn't as stealthy about it as he thought, because she says its high time they actually talked about this thing, this “us”. She agrees to trade him truth for truth, in a soul baring game of emotional chicken.

“I'm scared to give birth. I think its gonna hurt like the dickens and I don't know if I can handle it.”

He knows she's tougher than she thinks and he tells her so. She just stares him down. “I've never done this before. A relationship. I don't know how it's supposed to go.”

She smiles at that, like its something she knew already. She probably did. “I feel like I should be upset that my school plans have to be put on hold or that I might've disappointed my parents, but I'm not. I'm actually pretty happy with how things are turning out.”

Does she mean him? “I'm scared to be a dad. Didn't really have a great example.” He doesn't look at her as he says it. 

She reaches over and lifts his chin, forcing him to meet her eyes. “I'm scared that you are only with me because of the baby. That I'm just an obligation to you.”

“You deserve better than me. You deserve everything. I don't know if I can give that to you.” 

She smiles and grabs his hand between both of hers and takes a deep breath. “I saw you a couple of weeks before the bonfire. You came out of the garage and went across the street to the diner to pick up some food. I stopped in the middle of sidewalk and stared at you. Bonnie gave you some bags and said something that made you smile and I just . . .” She looks down at their hands and a tear slides down her cheek. “I just knew. Right then. I could see it. You, me, us. For the rest of my life.” She laughs and he reaches the hand she's not holding up to her cheek, thumbing away tears. She leans into it and stares at him. “I loved you before I even knew your name.”

He goes to her and wraps his arms around her. He can't believe that she was in this before he was, before he even met her. 

_This will be a great story to tell our daughter someday_ , he thinks.

**********

_Anyone who can touch you_  
 _Can hurt you or heal you_  
 _Anyone who can reach you_  
 _Can love you or leave you_

Beth gives birth to an amazing baby girl named Madison on a Sunday in October. She comes through labor like a rock star, just as Daryl knew she would. They get married that next June after Beth's graduation. A few years later, a son joins their daughter and Daryl thinks his heart is going to burst, sitting beside Beth's hospital bed holding little Benjamin, as Hershel and Annette bring Maddy in to meet her baby brother. 

Ten years after they met, he still can't breathe sometimes when he spots Beth across a room. Still feels dumbfounded when she walks over to him and takes his hand, still feels amazed when she steps up to kiss him. 

_It's only been 3,782 days_ , he thinks.


End file.
